Beautiful Confusion (New Adult Romance) Room 105 (12 page)

“You mean when
you
get paranoid of me?”

“Yes, me,” I reluctantly said.

“It doesn’t make a difference, honey. I love you, either way.”

I loved her, too, but I was too overwhelmed to say it, afraid of the tears I’d yet to cry.

She changed the subject. “Have you eaten yet? If not, why don’t you go fix yourself a sandwich and take your vitamins?”

“You mean my meds?”

“Yes, your meds.”

I followed her orders and headed for the kitchen. Luckily, I wasn’t paranoid of her today. Abby probably would be, though. Real or otherwise, my sister had always been cautious of Carol.

In the logical side of my brain, I knew that it didn’t make sense for Carol to lie to me. If she said I was schizophrenic, then it stood to reason that I was. But that didn’t change how I felt about Abby.

I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and wolfed it down like a kindergartener. I took my stupid pills, too.

Carol had resumed vacuuming. I could hear her running it along the carpet, cleaning the same area over again.

I went into my room and got my phone. I saw that Duncan had sent me a text. He was at work on a locksmith job and was wondering how I was. I sent a reply and said that I was fine. I was doing my best to be fine.

But as the day wore on, I went batty, bored out of my baffled mind. I took a chance and sent Lori a text to see if she was around. She was, and she was as bored as I was.

Soon we were making plans to hang out, with me going to her apartment to make Mexican food and strawberry margaritas. She even suggested that I spend the night.

Suddenly I felt as normal as normal could get. Lori didn’t know that anything was wrong with me. To her, I was like anyone else.

I relayed my plans to Carol. She was leery at first, but she gave in, especially when I argued that if I was going to get over Abby, then I needed a girlfriend to do girly things with. I didn’t mention how painfully conflicted I was over my sister. Instead, I tried to sound as if I was anxious to start over.

I also didn’t mention that Lori and I were going to drink. Alcohol sometimes affected schizophrenics in negative ways, either intensifying their symptoms or interacting with their medication, so I was going to be careful not to drink too much. That was the only solution I could think of, without giving up the experience altogether. I wanted at least one margarita.

Carol came into my room and reminded me to bring my medication. My welfare had become second nature to her, the way Abby’s had always been to me. But now, just thinking about my sister made me ache.

After I finished getting ready, I packed an overnight bag and left the house, desperate to soothe my wounded heart.

Lori greeted me at her door, wearing cutoff shorts and a ribbed tank top. Her flat-ironed hair flowed down her back. She looked like a pinup girl. Her apartment was equally impressive. She lived in a glamorous triplex in West Hollywood, a mere block from Melrose Avenue.

“So this is the building your mom owns,” I said, with my bag slung over my shoulder. I was determined to be upbeat, to make the most of my first sleepover. “It’s totally great.”

“I more or less manage it. That way I can rent the other two units to whoever I want.” She flashed a pretty smile. “Needless to say, I have cool neighbors.”

She invited me inside, and I glanced around. “I love how you decorated.” She’d combined eclectic furnishings, sequined accents, and pop art.

“Thanks. Let me show you to your room.”

She took me down the hall, and we entered a bedroom with an art deco vibe. It even had its own bathroom. I set my bag on the floor, peered out the French doors and saw a view of the backyard, glittering with a kidney-shaped pool.

“Are you hungry? Should we get started on the food?” She waggled her brows. “And the cocktails? I make killer margaritas. Strawberry is my specialty.”

“I’m starving.” And I was eager to try her specialty margaritas, even if I’d promised myself that I would only have one.

We proceeded to the kitchen, a charmingly cluttered room with embroidered curtains and a glass-topped table.

She removed the taco fixings from the fridge, and we joined forces. She fried the meat, and I chopped lettuce and diced the tomatoes. I also made the guacamole dip.

“We’ve been thinking about planting an avocado tree in our yard,” I told her. “We already have a vegetable garden. We compost, too.”

“That’s super. I try to be as green as I can.” She shrugged, then laughed. “Well, mostly I just throw stuff in the recycle bin. But at least I do that, I guess.”

“Every little bit helps.” I felt so grown up, being at my new friend’s house, talking about the environment. It was certainly better than staying home and panicking about being crazy.

After the food was ready, Lori made a pitcher of strawberry margaritas, combining tequila, triple sec, simple syrup, frozen strawberries, and limeade concentrate in a blender. She rimmed our glasses in sugar and poured the icy mixture.

I sipped mine and gushed. “Oh, my God.” It tasted like a smoothie. I couldn’t even tell there was alcohol in it.

“Good, eh?” She sipped hers, too.

We ate at the table, and when I was halfway through my margarita, I said, “I think I’m getting tipsy.” I couldn’t taste the liquor, but I could feel it.

Lori laughed. “You’re a lightweight.”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” I raised the glass to my lips. “But I like it.”

She leaned forward. “Can I tell you a secret?”

I leaned forward, as well. Her abrupt change of topic intrigued me. “Yes, of course.”

“It’s not really a secret because other people know about it,” she amended. “But I want you to know, too.”

“All right.”

She guzzled her drink, nearly finishing it. “I used to have a really close friend named Carla. We grew up together, but she hates me now.”

“Why? What happened?”

“She thinks I hit on her boyfriend. But I swear I didn’t.”

“Then why does she think you did?”

“Because he said that I tried to fuck him. He doesn’t like me, and he wanted me out of her life. What really hurts, though, is that she believed him over me. I guess she thinks I’m a big enough whore to do something like that. Our other friends believed it, too. Now none of them will talk to me. I have new friends from college, people I party with, but it’s been lonely without my old crowd.”

I realized why Lori had taken to me so quickly. She needed to fill the ache of losing Carla. But I figured it was okay because I was trying to ease the pain associated with Abby. “I’m sorry she hurt you.”

“The only guy I sleep with who has a girlfriend is Martin. But that doesn’t count because he was mine before he was hers.”

I still thought it counted, but I knew how badly she was struggling to get over Martin.

“Do you want to see a picture of him?” she asked.

I assumed she was talking about Martin. “Sure.” I was curious about the boy she couldn’t shake.

“Hold on. I’ll go get my iPad.” She went into the living room.

She came back and stood beside my chair. “I’ll show you his Facebook page. There are lots of pictures. You can see his stupid bitch girlfriend, too. Her name is Colette.”

“Do you know her? Personally?”

“We’ve never met. But she looks like a bitch.” She logged onto Facebook and brought up Martin’s homepage.

I leaned over to look. He was using an image of a malamute as his profile picture.

“That’s his dog,” Lori said. “He’s a big old baby. I miss him.”

Not only did she miss her ex, she missed his pet. She had it bad.

She went into Martin’s photo albums and pulled up a picture of a wildly handsome guy straddling a motorcycle and giving the camera a thumbs-up. He had short brown hair, a set of straight white teeth, a killer body, and an armload of tattoos.

“Dang,” I said.

“I know, right?” She blew out her breath and got into another of his albums. “This is Colette.”

Martin’s girlfriend was a sultry brunette with a voluptuous figure, almond-shaped eyes, and a sexy navel piercing.

“I have a belly button ring, too,” Lori said and lifted her tank top to show me.

“Your stomach is flatter than hers,” I said. “And you’re prettier than she is.” Actually, they were equally pretty in different ways, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“Thanks.” She made a nasty face at Colette’s picture and moved on to another image of the couple together, with Martin’s hand on Colette’s butt. “She has a gigantic ass.”

It was true, she did. But between Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj, and J. Lo, I didn’t think big booties were a bad thing to have. I didn’t say so, though. “Does she know that you still sleep with him?”

“No. He only comes to me when they’re fighting and then he goes back to her when it blows over. I’ve thought about contacting her and telling her what he does, but if I do, he’ll get mad at me and then I might not ever see him again.”

“You deserve better.” So did Colette, but I kept that tidbit to myself. Martin was handsome, but in my opinion, he had no heart. “You need to find a decent guy, Lori.”

“Are you sure there is such a thing?”

“Duncan seems decent.”

“Yeah, but he’s still a predator. They all are.”

“He doesn’t act like a predator around me. But he does seem fierce sometimes. I’m confused about the way I feel about him.”

“Men are always confusing.”

“So I’m learning.”

“Aren’t we all? So, what happened to your Facebook page? I thought you were going to open an account.”

“I did. But I haven’t friended anyone yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t uploaded a profile picture yet. I’ll have to take some of myself, I guess, and try to get a good one.” I wanted to look as pretty as possible, especially if I was going to friend Duncan. “I tried to check out Duncan’s wall after I opened my account, but I guess it’s private because I couldn’t get on it.” All I was able to see was his profile picture, which was an image of a blank canvas with his name spray-painted on it.

“Here, I’ll show you.” Lori got off Martin’s page and went to Duncan’s.

I scanned his wall. He’d created a recent photo album with pictures from the gallery opening. There were lots of posts about that night, too. None of them mentioned me. But why would they? None of his friends, except for Lori, knew me.

Curious, I poked through Duncan’s friends list and noticed how many gorgeous girls were on it. I scowled at the screen, wondering how many of them he’d slept with. I could see how Lori had become obsessed with stalking Martin’s page.

“I made Duncan promise to be my first,” I said.

“Really? So it’s official? You’re going to sleep with him?”

“Yes, but I don’t know when.”

“You were going to take it slow, anyway.” She resumed her seat and went back to her food, leaving her iPad next to me.

“I don’t think I want to go slow anymore. I want to be with him.”

“Then you should show up at his loft in your best lingerie and blow his socks off.”

Intrigued by what she said, I asked, “Do you think I could seduce him like that?”

“Of course you could. He wouldn’t be able to resist you.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, given what he knew about me. But I couldn’t tell Lori that. “I think he’s going to want to wait.”

“For what? The next century? If you’re ready, then he should go for it.”

“I can’t just show up in lingerie. I’d have to be wearing clothes, too.”

“Maybe you could go over there in a trench coat, like a flasher.” She refilled her margarita and laughed.

I laughed, too. But then I got a brainstorm. “I have this really cute coat dress that I could wear. It would be easy to remove.”

“Oh, I like that. You should do it.” She held out the pitcher, offering to refill my glass.

One drink was supposed to be my limit, but now I wanted more. All that was left in my glass was some slush at the bottom. “Sure, I’ll take another one.” A second margarita wasn’t going to kill me. The alcohol wasn’t affecting me badly. If anything, it was making me feel good.

We finished eating and put the leftover food away. But we didn’t do the dishes. We went into the living room with our cocktails. I sat on the sofa, and she plopped down on the floor, amid a grouping of pillows.

“Are you going to do it?” she asked, about me getting Duncan into bed.

“I’m certainly going to try.” Now that it was in my head, now that it was being discussed, I couldn’t let it go.

“When is this rendezvous going to happen?”

“I should probably shoot for next weekend.” That was the soonest I could do it, and if I waited until the week after that, it would be too late and I would be on my period.

“Are you going to come up with an excuse to visit him or are you just going to show up out of the blue with the element of surprise?”

“I think the element of surprise would be more effective. But if I go there and he isn’t home, then nothing will happen, except me having to start over again.”

“Maybe I can help you make sure that he’s home. I can arrange to stop by his place for some reason, but you’ll be the one going there instead.”

“You wouldn’t mind doing that?”

“Of course not. It’ll be fun to conspire with you.”

“Thanks, Lori.” My skin zinged with excitement, as if Duncan was touching me already. “Was your first time with Martin good?”

She shrugged. “It was okay.”

“Just okay?” I expected her to sing his praises.

“It was kind of quick and sloppy, but Martin had never done it before, either.”

“Oh, wow. You were each other’s firsts?”

She nodded. “I think that has a lot to do with why he keeps coming back to me. By now, we know what turns each other on and how to make it hot. So believe me, it got better.” She sighed, her voice dreamy. “But you know what the best part of being with Martin is? It’s when he holds me afterward. If Duncan wants to hold you afterward, you should let him.”

“Did Duncan hold you after you did it with him? I know you felt awful after you were with him, but did he try to make it better?”